El-Biar Stadium bombing

The El-Biar Stadium bombing occurred in mid-February 1957 when female FLN operatives planted bombs at the El-Biar Stadium in Algiers, Algeria during a horse race. The bombing killed ten people and injured forty-five in a deadly terrorist attack, the eighteenth attack in February and the 109th terrorist attack that year.

Background
In January 1957, 4,600 paratroopers of the French Army under General Jacques Massu were dispatched to assist the 1,500-strong police force in Algiers with maintaining security and putting down the FLN. Massu ordered the paratroopers to round up suspected FLN members and interrogate them to find out the hierarchy of the FLN command, and 25,000 Muslims were arrested by the French forces. The FLN was weakened by this police offensive, so Ali La Pointe and Sadi Yaacef decided to reestablish their contacts and carry out more attacks.

Bombing
In mid-February 1957, after the failure of the 1957 Algerian general strike in January, Yaacef sent female FLN operatives to plant bombs at the El-Biar Stadium in Algiers. One bomb went off in one crowded stand, surprising the people of the nearby stand; another bomb exploded there shortly after. Ten people were killed and forty-five were injured, and furious and racist French men attacked an Arab boy who had been carrying a tray of food and drinks for the attendees of the race. The police intervened to stop his severe beating, and the site of a horse race became a center of chaos.

Aftermath
On 4 March 1957, captured FLN leader Larbi Ben M'hidi was featured in a press conference by French journalists, who asked him if it was cowardly to hide bombs in Algerian women's baskets; he responded by asking if it was even more cowardly for the French to attack innocent villages with napalm and kill many thousands of times more Algerians. He stated that it would be easier if the Algerians could have planes, and he famously said, "Give us your bombers, sir, and you can have our baskets". Shortly after, Ben M'hidi was hanged by the French in a barn, with the French claiming that it was a suicide. French journalists questioned the use of torture by Massu soon after, and public opinion turned against the war as the media discovered how it was being fought.